


Meek and Mild

by Aibohp



Series: Three Is A Powerful Number [1]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 10:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12297261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aibohp/pseuds/Aibohp
Summary: Eddie feels like his mother has crippled his personality with her constant paranoia and manipulative behavior. He hates it. Every now and then he finds benefits, though. Besides, with his friends he can truly be himself, for the most part.





	Meek and Mild

**Author's Note:**

> In this Bill, Eddie, and Richie are in a relationship but Richie doesn't appear in this particular fic and is only mentioned. I also may have been a little too aggressive with my rating but I did it for the mention of past sexual activity between the three boys.
> 
> So I'mma just leave this here.

Sometimes Eddie wished he was more like Bill or Richie. 

He wished that he was tall, sturdy, and able to walk through the world without the rattle of pills or wheeze of his inhaler to follow him around. He wished that he was bold as brass with people other than The Losers, and able to let the ridicule of others slick off of him like water off a duck’s back. Instead he was meek and mild, often second guessing himself. Even as they got older he remained thin, and a bit sickly looking. One wouldn’t know it to look at him but mostly, Eddie was angry. 

For as long as Eddie could remember his mother had bottle fed him on fear and paranoia. She had told him that he was too sick to play outside, or try a sport. He was too weak and small to stop anyone who wanted to hurt him. Mrs. Kasprak had eagerly told him every single way the world was out to get him, hoping that it would keep him scared and close to home. That way she could keep him under her thumb and God, was he angry. 

He hated his mother a little bit, for not letting him be anymore than _this_.

Every now and then he would find small advantages to being exactly who he was, though. 

He got to listen to Bill sing, after all. Which was something he would rarely do around Richie. It wasn’t as if Richie was disparaging but he did make jokes. Even though they were light hearted little comments about how Bill could sing the birds from the trees, he would still get shy and clam up with a sweet little smile that drove both Eddie and Richie insane. 

Bill’s voice was carrying through the house now. The Denbroughs were out for the evening and while both he and Richie had been invited to keep Bill company only Eddie had been able to come. Of course it had involved a small lie to his mother about how Mr. and Mrs. Denbrough were definitely there. He had no doubt that his mother would find out about his transgression later on. She was a nosey old bat that had quite a way of finding out things. Eddie thought it was worth it, though. 

“When. My. Time comes around, lay me gently in the cold, dark earth.” Bill’s light baritone had drawn Eddie to the kitchen door and he smiled, hovering in the doorway. As much as he loved Richie sometimes he was glad when the other boy couldn’t make it to hang out with him and Bill. “No grave can hold my body down. I’ll crawl home to her…” Especially if it meant getting to watch Bill swaying in front of the oven and singing to himself as he waited out the last few minutes on the timer. 

Then Bill’s voice faded out and he started humming and Eddie grinned. Just because he knew when to keep his mouth shut didn’t mean he couldn’t joke around. Besides, it wasn’t as though he didn’t like an embarrassed Bill. He just didn’t like it when Richie interrupted him before he finished singing. 

“So who is this her you’re singing about? Is Bev stealing you away from Richie and me,” Eddie asked, his grin widening as Bill jumped and nearly tripped over his own legs as he spun around to look at him. 

“F-F-Fuck! You--you scared the sh-shit out of me,” Bill complained, his cheeks and ears going red. He was saved by the oven timer, though. 

As Bill turned back to the oven, this time grabbing a spatula and a cutting board, Eddie went to hop up on the counter by the fridge. Sitting on the counter erased a lot of the height difference between himself and Bill. Sometimes Eddie was certain that Bill would be taller than him forever but it didn’t matter that much. Because Bill didn’t treat him like he was little or sickly looking. He didn’t treat him like he was fragile. With both Bill and Richie he wasn’t meek and mild. Eddie was just… Eddie. 

“S-so what were you d-d-doing creeping a-a-around, anyway,” Bill asked, glancing over at Eddie as he put his cutting board full of pizza on the other side of the sink and started cutting it into pieces. Eddie watched, leaning his head back against the cabinets behind him. 

“I was listening to you sing.” There was that blush again and that shy little smile that Bill tried to hide by focusing on his task at hand and hunching his shoulders up around his ears. Eddie smiled. “Aside from getting you all to myself, it’s one of the many perks to Richie not being able to show up tonight.” 

Bill snorted, giving Eddie an amused look. “Be n-n-nice.” 

“I don’t wanna be,” Eddie replied, making Bill shake his head. There was a fond look on his face. 

Bill provided a sense of balance for the three of them. He was like a sun that he and Richie orbited. Just the two of them, Richie and Eddie, they never would have made a relationship work between them without Bill. They would have been a flash in the pan, hot, bright, and over in an instant. He and Richie liked to argue and pick at each other. It was always fun until someone said something that was just a little too annoying or a little too close to one of their secret insecurities. Then they would go through the cycle of fighting, sulking, and then coming back together again and saying sorry. It wasn’t a terrible friendship but it would have been an exhausting relationship. 

“You--You didn’t mind R-R-Richie being h-here _Last Time_ ,” Bill said slyly, as he dropped the pizza cutter in the sink and stepped away from their food. He took up residence between Eddie’s legs, planting his hands on either side of his hips. 

It was Eddie’s turn to blush, then. _Last Time_ , the caps included, had been quite an experience. Where both Eddie and Richie were awkwardly acclimating to the relationship they’d stumbled into Bill was diving in head first, leading the way as usual. Apparently he thought the best way to get his boyfriends to relax a little was to initiate a circle jerk. He wasn’t wrong. 

“Yeah well I bet having Richie’s hand on my dick would have been a lot less fun without you there,” Eddie said sulkily when confronted with Bill’s smug face. The tables had turned, it seemed. 

“An-An-And why’s th-that,” Bill asked, his head cocking to the side like a puppy when Eddie lifted his hand to cup his jaw. 

“Because then he’d be saying all that shit he was saying to you _to me_ and i think it would have pissed me off more than turned me on.” Before Bill could even think to reply Eddie leaned in to steal a kiss. He could feel the taller boy leaning further into him and his hands moving from the counter to Eddie’s hips. When he pulled away, Bill even tried to follow him. It seemed to Eddie that he was gaining the upper hand again. “Let’s face it, Big Bill. You’re turning out to be kinda a freak.” 

Bill chuckled, ducking his head to hide his flush. Then he wound his arms around Eddie’s waist and laid his head on his shoulder. Eddie tilted his head a little as Bill nuzzled into his neck. He wrapped his own arms around Bill’s shoulders and started to card his fingers through his coppery red hair. 

“Y-you like that I-I’m a freak. Mean--Mean’s you’re one t-too,” Bill teased, his breath ghosting warmly over Eddy’s collar bones and throat. 

“Well neither of us are bigger freaks than Richie,” Eddie proclaimed, making Bill burst into laughter again. Then he stepped away from the counter, pulling Eddie off and tightening his arms around him so he didn’t just drop to the floor. 

“You’ve g-got that r-r-right, Eddie,” Bill said, pulling away from him entirely. Eddie missed the contact almost instantly. “Now come o-on. Let’s e-eat.” 

Eddie missed the touching and kisses and where things seemed to have been heading but at the same time he wasn’t surprised. Even he thought it wasn’t quite right to do any more than a little kissing and cuddling without Richie. They were supposed to be feeling their way through this whole thing together. And when it was just the two of them it felt like something was missing. Three was a powerful number, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Who wants to know what it was that Richie was saying to Bill when they had their little circle jerk?


End file.
